Corinne parked her car along the narrow stone path of the Grace Haven Cemetery like she always did. She and Tee climbed out one side of the car. Callan stepped out of the other. Together they crossed the shallow incline to the patriotic garden and simple monument marking David Gallagher’s grave.
Callan moved forward. He set a thick-stemmed pumpkin against the marbled gray stone, then three little gourds alongside it, one for each of them.
Tee tucked a small American flag into a potted chrysanthemum and set it to the right of the pumpkin. Corinne bent low and added a spray of three red roses, their salute of love for a man gone too soon.
She stood back up, quiet. They didn’t have to talk or pray out loud when they visited Dave’s grave. Words weren’t necessary. But then Callan pointed to the thin script along the stone’s center. They’d tucked one of Dave’s favorite sayings there, just below his name and above the scripture notation. “Today is someday.”
Dave had lived those words. He always pushed to get things done, not to put tasks off to a random someday. He was a doer, a take-charge kind of personality with a great sense of humor, much like his adolescent daughter, two peas in a pod, as Kate liked to say.
Callan braced his arms around his middle in a firm stance. “I’ve made a decision, Mom.”
She looked his way and read his intent.
“I’m still aiming for baseball, but only two percent of people who want to play in the majors get to play in the majors.”
She nodded. She knew the stats.
“If that doesn’t work out, I’m going blue. Like Dad and Grandpa and Uncle Drew.”
His pronouncement should have surprised her. Callan was more like her, careful, assessing and cautious, but gazing at the rapidly growing young man, she realized that those qualities would serve him well, no matter what he chose to do in life. She pulled in a deep breath and smiled. “This isn’t the shock you think it is.”
“No?” He’d looked worried to make the announcement, but a little excited, too.
“It’s in your blood, Callan. It’s a bond that’s never broken, even by death. A brotherhood of officers.”
“You won’t try to stop me because of what happened to Dad?”
She might have, a few months ago. She might have two days ago, before Gabe swooped in to rescue her daughter.
Now...she shook her head. “Your dad and I would both want you to follow your conscience, Cal. To do what you think God wants you to do. And if that is serving your community as an officer, I will be proud of your service. Every single minute of it.”
He looked relieved by her words. He turned and offered a short salute to Dave’s grave, but not to the lifeless stone or pretty autumn arrangement.
To his father, gone before the kids really had a chance to know him.
“Are we going back home before we go to Grandma’s?” Tee asked.
“No, we’ve got everything we need in the car. Let’s head that way. Aunt Kimberly is bringing a frozen pumpkin ice cream pie from Stan’s custard stand, and I’m going to take a little of my own advice today and eat dessert first.”
“Whoa.” Tee flashed her a teasing grin. “Mom is walking on the wild side!”
“Totally,” Callan added in a dry tone. “But if Mom gets to do it, we all get to do it, so what are we waiting for?”
“Race!” Tee was off like a flash. Callan, too. They hit the car at the same time, laughing like the delightful normal kids they were.
She didn’t cry as she faced the grave. She read the inscription again, out loud. “Today is someday.”
A day for new choices and new roads. Dave wouldn’t have wanted her to live her life worried. He’d have teased her out of her funk and moved on, and that’s what she needed to do now. She’d probably messed up her chance with Gabe Cutler. She’d read the angst on his face the previous day, and she hadn’t even gotten a chance to properly thank him for rescuing Tee. He must think her ungrateful and stupidly stubborn.
She’d thank him today.
She’d make sure everyone knew how grateful she was for the rescue and for him. Just him.
She strode to the car, determined to make things right. She climbed in and turned the key.
Nothing.
She frowned, checked to make sure the steering wheel was locked and tried again.
Still nothing.
“It won’t start?” Tee leaned up and over the seat.
“For real?” Callan asked. He pulled out his phone before she could say anything and hit a number. “Coach, we’re stuck in the cemetery. Mom’s car won’t start and we’re in danger of missing pumpkin ice cream pie. Can you save us? Again?”
Heat climbed Corinne’s cheeks. Callan hit the speaker button, and Gabe’s voice came through loud and clear. “On my way. Be there in ten minutes.”
Drew and Kimberly pulled in ahead of them. They trekked to the grave, adorned it with a holiday wreath. They paused, gazing down, remembering Drew’s best friend and Kimberly’s big brother...and then they came their way. “Why are you sitting in the car in the cemetery?”
“Car won’t start.”
“No?” Drew arched his brows. “I’ll call Grant.”
“Coach is on his way to rescue us,” Tee told them, hanging out her window. “I think this is getting to be a thing. We get into trouble—”
“Or cause trouble,” Callan deadpanned with a look in Tee’s direction.
“—and then Coach rescues us.”
“Well, how about if we take you two with us? Because that ice cream pie is waiting at the house, and as much as I love the Gallagher clan, I don’t trust them to leave the pie alone until after dinner.”
Tee poked Corinne’s shoulder. “They’re on to us, Mom.”
“So it would seem.” She turned her gaze back to Drew and Kimberly. “You guys don’t mind taking them?”
Drew opened Tee’s door. “Of course not, although I feel funny leaving you here alone.”
“I’m fine. And Gabe will be here soon.”
“We could just call him and tell him we’re rescued,” Tee suggested. “Save him a trip.”
“It’s on his way, and there’s food at Grandma’s,” noted Kimberly.
“Reason enough to ride with you guys.” Callan fist-pumped the air as he loped to their car. “Tell Coach I’ll save him a piece.”
Corinne shot Kimberly a quick look of thanks. She wanted a minute or two alone with Gabe, long enough to apologize and thank him. Kimberly and Drew pulled out of the knoll about two minutes before Gabe pulled in.
He parked his SUV, climbed out and came her way.
Her heart sped up. She started to climb out of the car, but he leaned down, blocking the door. “What seems to be the problem, ma’am?”
She gazed into his gorgeous light brown eyes, sparked with humor and something else. Something deliciously indefinable. “My car won’t start, Officer.”
“That’s ‘Trooper,’ ma’am.”
She inclined her head with a slight smile as she corrected herself. “Trooper.”
He grinned, held her gaze, then stepped back. “Pop the hood.”
She did.
He gave a look underneath as she climbed out of the car. “Do you see anything?”
He shook his head. “No. But then I use Frank at Pieroni’s Garage because I know nothing about engines. I called him on my way. He should be here soon.”
“But you had me pop the hood.” She moved toward him, puzzled.
“For effect.” He straightened as she laughed, and then he looked around. He spotted the fresh arrangement of tributes on the incline and jutted his chin. “Your husband’s grave?”
“We stop by on holidays or just any old day. I’ve always wanted to give the kids a sense of who Dave was, because they never got a chance to know him personally. Callan was a toddler when he died, and I was pregnant with Tee.”
“That’s a tough set of circumstances.”
It had been, so she acknowledged it with a lift of her shoulder. “But we did okay.”
“You did more than okay. Corinne, listen—” he began, but she had started in at the same time.
“Gabe, I—”
They both paused. Gabe motioned her to go ahead. “Ladies first. Are you cold? Because we can talk in my car. It’s got heat and everything. Unlike yours that won’t turn on.”
“I’m fine. And I’ve got to say this to you, and it’s easier face-to-face.”
He waited solemnly, but his eyes still twinkled, as if he had a secret. A happy kind of secret, and she liked seeing him that way.
“I want to thank you for yesterday.” He waved that off as no big deal, but Corinne knew better. “Don’t brush it off, Gabe Cutler. You risked your life and sacrificed your boat to save my daughter. I can’t even begin to tell you how scared I was when that call came in, and then to be stuck in traffic, unable to get here quickly.”
“Horrible, I expect.”
She nodded, then shrugged. “It was and it wasn’t. It was the wake-up call I needed.” She drew a deep breath and looked up. “I’ve been so busy trying to be a great mom and trying to keep them safe and sound, proving I could do it all, that I lost track of some of the important things. I forgot to trust in God, because when I did trust him, I lost Dave. I think I never quite forgave God for that, and couldn’t hand over the reins because I’d been let down before. And even though I know it was a human decision that put my husband in harm’s way...” She hesitated. “He took a chance that day and lost. I still felt like God let me down.”
“And now?”
“I realized as I drove home yesterday, completely powerless to help, that I’ve gotten power hungry,” she admitted. “I like being the decision maker. I like being the person in charge. That power is being wrenched out of my hands as the kids grow up, and I realized yesterday that it was never really in my hands. I wanted it to be, but the true power and strength was beyond me. And with Him. He sent you to me. He sent you to coach my son, and He sent you this year to be my next-door neighbor.” She put her hands on his arms. “And you saved my little girl’s life. I can never thank you enough for that.”